


Routine

by Findarato



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, Mentions of canon violence, character introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21596623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findarato/pseuds/Findarato
Summary: Life goes on.[[Three phases of Lio's life, and what routine is to him.]]
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 2
Kudos: 188





	Routine

**Author's Note:**

> A recent Q&A said Galo and Lio were about “entry level business men age,” that’s somewhere around 20—25 years old, so based on that, this is my headcanon for Lio’s timeline:  
> 0yrs—19yrs, normal. 19yrs—24yrs, fugitive. 25yrs, Mad Burnish leader + start of Promare movie.

■□■ **1** ■□■

He is supposed to be studying for exams, but he's in the living room, watching the news about the Burnish. It's a constant, with plays of the last attack, the most recent arrest, the government making promises, the many debates, and the blurry clips of terrorist messages. Over and over, spitting out the same words in a different order. It will never change. Not until they have a solution.

Meanwhile, the house across from his is burning. Bright, neon-coloured flames, shooting upwards and outwards from a window. It started maybe four minutes ago.

He should call the number, the separate one they had for Burnish situations.

Instead, he watches, phone in hand, as the flames swirl and increase. A man is on the streets, screaming as he burns and flails. A woman stumbles out, singed but otherwise all right, arms full of whatever belongings she has grabbed. She's screaming, too. The walls are thin, and he can hear everything.

_You didn't tell me. I didn't know._

_What are we going to do? I don't know, they'll lock me up._

_Are you sure weren't just hiding this from me? No, I swear I didn't know._

_You're going to kill people. I'm still the same person._

It's always the same sort of dialogue, coupled with the same expressions. Then Freeze Force arrives, shoots their ice weapons, and loads the offender up. They put the fire out, offer some condolences and paperwork, and then they're gone.

He shuts the curtains.

Burnish fires are so common that every establishment, down the classrooms and the dingiest public toilets, has one fire extinguisher. People are told to carry portable ones, and to report any incidents immediately. The fire drills and roles are ingrained into his mind, and everyone knows how to put out a fire with random supplies, if necessary.

It's amazing how commonplace it's all become. The only panic is when people are trying to escape a building or if one of the many Burnish groups shows up and purposefully destroys things and more than one person at a time dies. There hasn't been another Great World Blaze for a while.

A while back, he had a conversation with his parents.

_'_ _They never let the Burnish speak for themselves.'_

_'_ _Why would they do that? They almost destroyed everything.'_

_'_ _They didn't ask to be Burnish.'_

_'_ _And you didn't ask to be born, but here you are. It's called taking responsibility for your actions.'_

But it's curious how there's almost never broadcasts of Burnish interviews or news following up on them after they've been arrested. If you asked questions, suddenly you're just as bad.

His books are in front of him now, the words swimming on the pages. If he concentrates, he swears he can smell the smoke from the remains of the house across from his.

The woman is still in the street. She's crying.

But life goes on.

He turns the page, because that's what this routine dictates. That's what this world is.

▽▼▽ **2** ▽▼▽

It's cold; deserts don't retain heat after nightfall. Thank goodness Lio is Burnish, running warm and able to keep a steady flame going as he washes his hair in a cracked basin he had found earlier.

Terrorists don't have days off. Even if you were a child, with uncontrollable flames that you maybe tried to conceal, maybe tried to pass off as someone else's. Once you were Burnish, you were either taken in, or on the run.

He had a different name when he was born, up until the day things went wrong. Family, friends—they wouldn't be looking for him since association would be dangerous for them. No one is using the word "contagious," but it's obvious that's the very word strangling thoughts and provoking fear, the suspicious spectators pointing fingers at every Burnish. Science is making efforts to stop Burnish, but very little effort at understanding how Burnish powers fully worked.

The last time he visited any kind of doctor was when he threatened one at arrowpoint at an urgent care center, to give him stitches for a particularly nasty run-in with Freeze Force. Intimidation was only thing that worked, since offering money hadn't. Any other attempts to visit a hospital would mean being sent to Foresight Foundation, where people disappeared and almost never came out of.

Almost, being the important word. Last month, in a crowded city slum that some Burnish hid, in the furthest corner possible, he spoke with a woman. She had a shaky, high-pitched voice and trembling hands to match.

_'_ _Th-they're experimenting. They're building something that requires us Burnish.'_

_'_ _What is it?'_

_'_ _I don't know. S-something large. Something that uses up our lives, like a battery.'_

The slums are invaded that very night and despite his interference, most of them were taken away.

Is he surprised? No. It would explain the lack of Burnish voices due to the crackdowns. If you tore out all their tongues and cut off their limbs, they couldn't say a single thing.

Water pools in the sand; he kicks it and flings the basin away as he runs his hands through his hair. This hideout has been safe for a while and already people were talking about more permanent plans, but it's still too early. By his calculations, the arrests have been increasing, Freeze Force becoming more aggressive, more dangerous. Foresight's reach grows more malicious with each day.

They're _desperate_.

Lio forcefully exhales, and sets to drying his hair with his flames. It looks ridiculous but it works just fine, like how with a touch they can boil water or cook things. He'll do the same for his clothes later, if there's time.

Being Burnish means constant vigilance, especially for him. They switch guards, but he still sleeps lightly, usually upright against something. It's rare to have more than four hours a night to himself, five if he's fortunate. More and more Burnish join every day, and there's arguments to settle, food and resources to obtain, speeches to give, ideas to plan, and a sense of impeding doom and hopelessness to ward off.

It's exhausting.

"Boss?" Meis's voice; Lio can hear his feet stomping through the sand. "We got a tip-off about the location of that prison we're trying to get into."

"Can it be trusted?" Looks like his clothes will have to wait.

"Verified with several people. It's real."

He flicks the ends of his bangs, fluffing them. "Then we're carrying out the plan—that plan," he clarifies.

"Boss…" Meis steps closer. "It's risky. They'll see your face."

"It's about time they did." Few Freeze Force that spot him from time to time, and they probably didn't realise he was the leader. All the better to mess with them. "Are you in?"

"Is fire hot?" That's Guiera, catching the end of their conversation. "Of course." And Meis offers a thumb-up.

Sand crunches underneath his shoes when he stands. "Thank you."

This routine of long days, harsh circumstances, and the opposing world, it's wearying. Yet it's these people—his people—that make it worth every fight he picks.

It's the best thing they've got right now, in this struggle.

●○● **3** ●○●

On the days before they start their shift at Burning Rescue, Lio gets up first to make breakfast, anywhere between six or six thirty.

He leaves Galo in the bed, making sure the covers are tucked all around him before he shuffles on his tiptoes to the kitchen. The bacon is always first; the time it takes for the skillet to heat and the grease to sizzle, he goes through his phone notifications. After that, in go the eggs—five of them, yolks jiggling, and he brushes his teeth when that's happening. The toast is next, heat cranked up somewhere between crispy and burnt. Sometimes he eats a piece of bacon first as he hunches over the counter, yawning between bites.

Galo's usually up by the time the toast is done, with messy hair and a shirt. Why he puts on a shirt in the morning but not while sleeping is beyond Lio.

_'_ _Did you sleep all right?'_ one of them will inevitably ask.

_'_ _Yeah. Pretty well.'_ The eggs are the perfect consistency, slightly runny but lacy brown at the edges. Matched with the salty crunch of bacon and toast, it makes a morning worth it. Galo usually will toast more bread, while Lio boils hot water for their coffee and tea.

_'_ _How you wake up with hair that fluffy,'_ Galo likes to say, while he tries to smooth it down.

_'_ _How do you wake up with hair that chaotic,'_ Lio will answer back, poking at the ends.

_'_ _It's a force of nature!'_ Galo, posing with buttered toast in one hand, coffee in the other, is a common morning sight.

_'_ _Get going, idiot.'_

They're usually out the door by seven-thirty, usually sharing a ride because it saves costs and in colder weather, Lio prefers huddling against Galo instead of bracing himself against the chill. It's probably a slight hazard when they're dragging equipment and belongings with them, but that's how they always done it since Lio joined Burning Rescue.

It's been half a year, of all this.

They start at eight o'clock sharp. Duties range anywhere from repairs, security checks, demonstrations, tests, maintenance, attending events, and actual emergencies. No day is the same, and in a course of a shift, fewer emergencies than Lio's expected would happen in that time. A lot of downtime, actually.

When he first joined, he had hardly imagined this. Those early times were a blur of rebuilding and restoration, exhausting work that sapped everyone's energy. But after a few months, it has changed.

_'_ _Hey, Lio. Have you ever had Malaysian food?'_

He hadn't.

_'_ _There's a free concert some blocks away. Wanna go?'_

Yes.

_'_ _So that store is selling limited edition t-shirts, so if you have nothing else planned…'_

Standing outside a store at midnight is not something he'd actively choose to participate in, but seeing Galo, grinning and holding up a t-shirt with obnoxious colours, is worth it.

One evening, he's eating over-salted popcorn after a movie, lips slightly blistered. Galo is eating from the same cup, grabbing handfuls as he talks the movie in his usually excitable way.

"You really liked that movie." Lio licks the side of his mouth. Too much butter in the popcorn.

"Yeah. Didn't you?"

"I didn't dislike it. But if we compare how those guys saved their world, I think we did it better."

"Well, obviously. Nothing beats the two of us."

But those days were over. Maybe a new crisis will happen someday, but maybe it's no longer their turn. Right now, the only urgent thing on his mind is that he needs a new pair of gloves. Galo has finished the popcorn; the kernels are rattling against the oily paper container as they walk.

"Lio."

"Hm?"

"We're getting a few days off for the holidays."

"So?"

"So…you have any plans? Anywhere you wanna go?"

Plans, huh.

In the past, plans were for survival and for tactics. Plans were for keeping the Burnish alive, and bringing down the government. Plans were for important things. "Not really."

"What if you had to pick some place?"

Some place that wasn't a desert, a cave, or prison? Lio takes the empty cup and tosses it, the kernels clattering into the trash can. "Maybe Detroit."

"Detroit?"

"That was where it started—for me." He hasn't been back, for many reasons. Detroit is one of those cities that held on to its past, barely changing. "But only if you wanted to go."

"I've never been out of Promepolis—"

"Really, never?"

"Nope! Never got the chance."

He forgets most people were less travelled than he was. On the other hand, most people weren't on the run for years of their lives. "Then…let's go?"

"Yeah, let's. Nothing's stopping us!"

Lio pauses to inhale, cold air stinging his lungs. His breath puffs out in smoky white, and he can still taste the popcorn. Indeed, nothing is stopping him.

"What do you think about taking a road trip there?"

"I think that's a great idea. I can look up hotels to stop at, and there's the food too—oh, there's also sites along the way, since it'll be a few days—" And there goes Galo, gesturing and jumping from one idea to another.

In that instant, he's aware of several things: Watching Galo talk while they take this street back to the apartment. Being surrounded by others who aren't giving him a second glance. His hands, shoved into the pockets of his coat, despite the butter that's still on his fingers.

It's incredibly mundane.

"Galo. Stop talking for a second."

"What—"

Lio kisses him.

When it comes to routine, there is one he's grown fond of.

He's gotten used to how the apartment door lock sticks a little unless you twisted the key upwards and then down, or how the heat shuts itself off at exactly two minutes before midnight. He's gotten used to endless late night pizzas, tv-show marathons, and half-hearted arguments on their preferences.

There's how Galo smells like smoke and old leather and has too many gloves and not enough of anything else, how he likes to sleep on his left side and yet if he wants to hold Lio, will sleep in any position so that they're in contact.

There's a familiarity in Galo's voice, in the moments he rests his hands on Lio's head or shoulder, and when tucks his arm around his waist. Or when they share a couch and Lio finds him snuggling down and resting his arms on Galo's thighs, head pillowed on his chest, falling asleep in that position.

There's the kisses, like the one right now. It doesn't hurt; not sharply at least, but he does ache, the longer he kisses.

"Lio?" The way Galo says his name, too, is familiar.

"I just felt like doing that." He tries for flippancy.

It's not fair that he can have this, when others died before they could.

How can he even begin to explain that this is something he hadn't thought possible, nor considered, when he was Burnish, or that it was almost impossible for this kind of happiness when you weren't considered even human at some point in your life?

Galo has slipped his hand into Lio's, grease and all. They're going to reek of this damn popcorn later. Nevertheless, he grips tight, and looks at Lio so intently it makes his breath catch.

"Everything okay?" Galo asks, softly.

They've both had their lives upended and been forced to change. It doesn't usually show, but he's like an open book right now, isn't he.

"Yeah. Just thinking."

"About?"

"You. And me."

"Funny, I was thinking the same."

"We're very lucky," he says, though luck hardly covers it.

"The luckiest idiots alive."

"That's just you." And Lio grips back, firmly.

This is a routine he's glad to be a part of.

**.end.**


End file.
